The present invention resides generally in the field of medical adhesives and in particular aspects to materials and devices including such adhesives for use in a variety of medical applications.
As further background, medical adhesives have been utilized in medical applications either alone or in conjunction with medical materials. When included on a medical material, the material can be applied to a patient as a tissue graft, or can be further included as part of a medical device, e.g., a surgical stapler.
Medical adhesives have been used on both synthetic and biological materials. With respect to biological materials, a variety of extracellular matrix (ECM) materials have been proposed for use in medical grafting, cell culture, and other related applications. For instance, medical grafts and cell culture materials containing submucosa derived from small intestine, stomach or urinary bladder tissues, have been proposed. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,902,508, 4,956,178, 5,281,422, 5,554,389, 6,099,567 and 6,206,931. In addition, Cook Biotech Incorporated, West Lafayette, Ind., currently manufactures a variety of medical products based upon small intestinal submucosa under the trademarks SURGISIS®, STRATASIS® and OASIS®.
Medical materials derived from liver basement membrane have also been proposed, for example in U.S. Pat. No. 6,379,710. As well, ECM materials derived from amnion (see e.g. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,361,552 and 6,576,618) and from renal capsule membrane (see International PCT Patent Application No. WO 03/002165 published Jan. 9, 2003) have been proposed for medical and/or cell culture applications. Any adhesive included on a medical material must be compatible with both the material and any tissue it is applied to. Adhesives having the ability to serve as a carrier for pharmaceutical or other bioactive agents are also desirable
In certain applications, medical materials have been used in conjunction with surgical stapler devices as a bolster material. Such devices are designed to seal or simultaneously cut and seal an extended segment of tissue in a patient with staples, and a bolster material can be used to further secure the staples. The use of a bolster material finds particular use when the patient's tissue to be sealed is too fragile to securely hold the staples in place. For example, in the case of lung tissue, and in particular diseased lung tissue, the tissue to be stapled is fragile and, in extreme cases, will easily tear through unprotected staple lines. With the growing use of surgical staplers in operations on diseased lung tissues such as bullectomies and volume reduction procedures, it has become increasingly important to take measures to protect fragile tissue from tissue tears due to surgical staples or surgical stapling procedures. In many cases, as a preliminary step, the bolster material is in some manner applied to the arms of the surgical stapler, e.g. with portions applied to each arm, and the stapler thereafter used to secure tissue of the patient. In such applications, it is desirable to apply the bolster material in a manner that it is easily removable from the arms of the surgical stapler, such as after the staples have been forced through the material. Adhesives have been used for this purpose.
With respect to the above, it is apparent that a need remains for improved medical adhesives that can be used in a wide variety of medical applications. The present invention provides such medical adhesives, as well as medical products and methods related thereto.